Polymers or copolymers (hereinafter collectively referred to as “(co)polymers”) of olefin(s) and copolymers of an olefin and a polar monomer play very important roles as industrial materials. In order to produce the important (co)polymers efficiently and in order to maintain plants, polymers produced in recent plants are particulate (Non-Patent Document 1). The former olefin (co)polymers are produced in a particulate state using a Ziegler catalyst and a metallocene-supported catalyst, but the production has a disadvantage that a very expensive cocatalyst (methylaluminoxane, an organoaluminum compound, or a boron compound) is used in a large amount for activating the catalyst and removing poisoning substances (e.g., see Non-Patent Document 1). Furthermore, since these polymerization catalysts are poisoned by a polar monomer, it is impossible to produce a copolymer of an olefin and a polar monomer (e.g., see Non-Patent Document 2). Similarly, in the case of polymerization of an olefin using an FI catalyst that is an early periodic transition metal catalyst, it has been reported that there is a need for a relatively large amount of the cocatalyst in order to scavenge the poisoning substance or it is only possible to produce a copolymer with a polar monomer in which the olefin portion and the polar part are relatively apart from each other (e.g., see Non-Patent Document 3).
In contrast, it has been reported that catalysts of a diimine-based complex or a bis(imino)pyridine-based complex having nickel, palladium, iron, or cobalt as a central metal, which have been recently found by Brookhart, Gibson, et al., can polymerize olefins without using any expensive cocatalyst and further can also produce a copolymer of an olefin and a polar monomer (e.g., see Non-Patent Document 4). Therefore, there have been made efforts to support the catalysts to produce particulate (co)polymers (e.g., see Non-Patent Document 1) and there is a report that a particulate polymer can be produced (e.g., Non-Patent Document 5). However, since a polymer produced from a diimine-based supported catalyst has many methyl branches, there is a report that the melting point of the polymer is low (e.g., see Non-Patent Document 6).
Compared to the diimine-based catalyst and bis(imino)pyridine-based catalyst, recently, there are reports that an olefin polymer and an olefin/polar monomer copolymer having excellent mechanical and thermal properties are produced by using a phosphine-sulfonate-based Pd catalyst or a phosphine-phenol-based catalyst (e.g., see Non-Patent Document 7 and Patent Document 1). It, however, is very difficult to support these catalysts that are neutral complexes. The activity of supported catalysts reported was also very low (e.g., see Patent Document 2).